The steeping process is perhaps the most important part of making an excellent cup of tea, and yet it’s vastly misunderstood.

Have you ever heard anyone say “Nah, I don’t really like green tea... I tried it once but it was grassy and bitter.” All too often this is simply because they were given low quality tea steeped with boiling water, which scalds green tea and makes it tannic and astringent.

Each type of tea calls for its own steeping process, and simply being conscious of this can help you prepare the perfect cup every time.

How To Steep Tea: from Mediocre to Marvelous

Proper steeping, including proper water temperature and timing, extracts the full spectrum of flavors and aromas from the leaves while avoiding bitterness and astringency. Bitterness can ruin any tea, but especially the more delicate types like green tea.

Because steeping skills can make the difference between a mediocre and a marvelous cup, many tea drinkers view the steeping process as an art form in itself.

Ultimately, the perfect cup can be broken down into three easy steps: WATER, LEAVES, and TIMING.

WATER

Water preparation is crucial. Some types of tea require water at full boil, while some call for nearly boiled water, and still others for water that is a full fifty degrees cooler than boiling!

Water quality matters: filtered or spring water is best, and make sure to use fresh water with each heating, rather than reusing water that is still left in your kettle.

LEAVES

Measure your leaves place them into your pot, strainer, gaiwan, or brewing basket. As a general rule, about 1 tsp to 1 Tbsp of tea per 8 ounces of water (or one tea bag per 8 ounces), but adhere to the instructions on the label. Larger leaf teas simply won’t scoop well into a teaspoon -- for these teas, up your measurement to roughly 1 Tbsp per 8 ounces.

TIMING

Pour your properly heated water over your leaves, start your timer, and keep it covered! This will maintain a consistent temperature while the leaves are steeping. When the steeping is done, remove the leaves but don’t discard them yet! Most teas will give you a second steeping from the same leaves, and some will give you a third (this will depend on the type of tea and the length of your steeps). Just increase your steep time with each steeping, and enjoy the evolving character of the tea.

Making tea is an art, not a science!

Adjust your proportions of water to leaves as you see fit. For loose leaf tea, general rules on steep times are as follows:

Oolong Tea Water just before boiling. Western Style: steep for 3-4 min; Eastern Style: 1 min. first steeping, 1:30 min. second steeping, etc, up to 5 steeps.

Understanding the best ways to extract the full flavor and essence of a tea can make or break your tea experience. Even though each tea asks for a slightly different process, don’t let that intimidate you!

A single leaf...with an ASTOUNDING array of health benefits. It sounds promising! And to many people, it is.

The last decade has seen Moringa catch the attention of researchers in the Western world, sparking a trend that has given way to hundreds of studies and has helped garner Moringa its mystical nickname: the “miracle tree”.

It’s health properties are impressive, to say the least, and there are many ways to consume it (including tea!), making it an easy item to add to your daily routine.

Moringa has been found to help improve healing speed, stabilize blood sugar, and even combat disease.

Why should you start incorporating this little super power leaf into your health regime?

1. It’s High in Antioxidants

Moringa provides a wealth of vitamins and minerals, many of which serve as antioxidants. Rich in minerals such as calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium and zinc, it’s also a good source of vitamins A, many B vitamins, C, D, and E.

Even more impressive is its phytochemical contents, many of which have been found to slow the growth of cancer and reverse diabetes. If that weren’t impressive enough, it also contains a spectrum of 18 amino acids, including all 9 of the essential amino acids, making it the only plant to be considered a complete protein.

3. It Works to Balance Hormones

Hormones are sensitive to oxidative stress, so the antioxidant properties of Moringa help protect your hormones against free radicals. This is especially true for the hormone estrogen, making Moringa a particularly beneficial supplement for women.

4. It Smooths Digestion

The anti-inflammatory properties of Moringa have helped soothe troubled digestion for centuries. Meanwhile, its fiber and coagulant properties make it a great source of alleviation for constipation. More recently Moringa has been found to help alleviate even more serious digestive issues, such as acute colitis.

5. It Contributes to Glowing Skin

Moringa is made up of antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral compounds, all of which help heal skin conditions ranging from acne to abscesses. Moringa oil has been used as an astringent agent to help treat skin conditions and heal wounds topically. The antioxidant properties of Moringa help combat infections of the skin internally, as well, by fighting free radicals and boosting the liver in its detoxification process.

6. It Improves Brain Health

By bolstering the thyroid through its antioxidant properties, Moringa not only protects the regulation of all-important hormone levels, but it also enables the thyroid to do its job in balancing mood and sleep patterns. Better mood and sleep make for a healthier environment for the brain.

7. It Stabilizes Blood Sugar

Researchers have been fascinated with Moringa for the last decade as they realized its powerful effects against diabetes. Numerous studies have shown moringa to lower blood glucose levels among patients with diabetes. Other studies have found that Moringa can help lower other markers for diabetes, as well, such as increase insulin sensitivity and lower fasting blood glucose.

How to Prepare Moringa

Moringa tea can easily be made with dried leaves steeped in nearly boiling water. Though the nutritional benefits of Moringa tea are not as extensively studied as Moringa extract or powder, it can surely provide you with many similar benefits when consumed regularly.

No other plant offers the same nutritional content as Moringa, nor has any other plant been found to combat such a wide array of disease. It is, indeed, a little leaf with super powers!

Making their way into the public eye in the 1980’s, micro-loans provide private financing to business owners in small, rural communities all over the world.

Because these communities don’t have access to capital, they often find themselves in cyclical poverty that spans generations. These loans provide a way for communities to break the poverty cycle, improve living conditions and extend educational opportunities for children.

How exactly can micro-loans help save the world?

Sustainability

Unlike volunteer work and generous donations, which only help provide one-time services to a community, these are investments that help establish lasting business growth. Such a business is likely to boost the local economy for years -- and potentially generations -- to come, providing a sustainable solution to end poverty.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.

Empowering Women

Historically, women are more likely than men to start a business and follow through to repay their loans. Women take advantage of these opportunities more aggressively than men, which helps strengthen equality and opportunity between men and women in rural communities. Women are also more likely to involve others in their businesses so that more people will benefit from its success.

Accessibility

Banks are stringent with their loans and require clients that have a credit history. In many underdeveloped countries, people often rely on barter and trade in order to provide for their families rather than using currency. This means they not only lack credit history but they also rarely have bank accounts. Micro-loans from private lenders help provide the same opportunities a bank might offer, but without the necessity of a credit history.

Educational Opportunities

Provincial communities have poor childhood graduation rates because many families rely on the help of their children to run the family business. This lack of education stands as a major obstacle to upward mobility, dashing hopes of moving beyond a hand-to-mouth existence and perpetuating the cycle of poverty. Micro-loans help create new small businesses and thereby create more jobs in the community so that the children can continue their studies and succeed in school.

Improved Welfare

Just like any loan, a micro-loan pumps money into the local economy. Whether the money is used to purchase supplies or to hire employees, it trickles down into more households than just that of the business owner. With more money in the community, living conditions naturally improve over time.

Employment Opportunities

A small loan not only provides supplies to a small business, it may also enable the business to hire employees. In this way, the business owner isn’t the only one that benefits from the loan -- people from the community will also have access to newly created jobs, all thanks to the investment put forward.

Many people not only view micro-loans as an economic solution to poverty, but also as a holistically impactful way to save the world.

As a result, more and more individuals--not just mega corporations or wealthy philanthropists--are jumping at the opportunity to provide micro-financing.

By supporting small businesses in underdeveloped areas, micro-loans are improving the lives of entire communities. With their proven track record of improving the livelihood of both individuals and whole populations, these investments are a fresh and creative way to make our world a better place.

Marquis Matson, TEEMA Tea staff writer and freelance blogger, is passionate about food, hiking and Latin America. She currently resides in Ecuador, where she lives as a writer and explorer, after a year-long backpacking trip through Central America.